


Thigmotropism

by katiemariie



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 03:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11888931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemariie/pseuds/katiemariie
Summary: Armed with more than their fair shares of childhood trauma, two outcasts negotiate the desire for basic physical contact. This involves much more talking than touching.





	Thigmotropism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guardianofdragonlore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianofdragonlore/gifts).



Despite recently casting aside torture (at least for the time being), Garak holds on stubbornly to other facets of his Obsidian Order training, most notably his use of touch and invasions of personal space to establish dominance. It’s a habit Odo isn’t entirely free of himself; after Bajoran scientists, Cardassian guards were his first instructors in intimidation. However, Odo has the good sense to restrict looming over people to his professional life.

On the other hand, Garak engages in frivolous touching and unnecessary proximity at nearly every opportunity.

When passing by strangers in the Replimat, he’ll often place a hand near (but never touching) their lower back as if to guide them. On the rare occasions that they breakfast at Quark’s, Garak seems to get some perverse thrill in touching Ferengi waiters on the elbow, treating them very nearly like they do their “female” coworkers. Garak has even started to touch Odo’s arm ever so briefly as they talk, never giving Odo enough time to shoo him away.

It’s this prolonged exposure that Odo cites when Garak’s hand lingers long enough for the gawking, gossipy crowds at the Replimat to notice, but without even registering in Odo’s admittedly diffuse consciousness.

Odo used to be so irritated by the artificial air currents on the station, drafts that no one else could even feel, but in time he learned to ignore them. He supposes the same could be said for Garak.

If Odo feels any shame about Garak’s touch becoming an expected and unremarkable part of daily life, it has everything to do with his reflexes going dull in the presence of a violent criminal, and nothing to do with… 

It’s a matter of professional pride. It couldn’t be anything else, because what else is there?

-

Bashir leans against the doorway of Garak’s newly reconstructed shop, forming the kind of long, lean line that Garak so desperately coveted as a youth (in more ways than one).

“I heard a rather interesting rumor this morning,” Bashir says smugly.

“Oh?” Garak says, returning to his hemming.

“According to my source, there were multiple sightings of you and Constable Odo holding hands in the Replimat at breakfast.”

“Really, doctor,” Garak tuts, “you mustn’t believe everything you hear.”

“A lesson you’ve taught me in spades.”

“Which you clearly haven’t taken to heart.”

“And you’re lucky I haven’t. Who else on this station would line up to listen to your lies?”

Garak’s hands still over his project. “Is that why you’re here? To listen to me lie?”

“With such a juicy rumor going about, naturally I’m curious to hear whatever explanation you can concoct. In terms of intrigue, station gossip is no match for Mr. Garak’s tall tales.”

“Who knew the Obsidian Order could create such a singular source of entertainment?” Garak says airily.

“If you think confirming items on your CV will throw me off, you must know I’m not the bright-eyed young doctor you once knew.”

Garak looks up from his sewing to see the same bright-eyed young doctor he’s always known. 

“No.” Garak smiles. “You’re a grown man of thirty, an elderly statesman of the station.”

Bashir relieves the doorframe of its burden and walks over to Garak.

“I may be young and inexperienced in your eyes,” Bashir says, “but unlike Odo, I didn’t spend my entire childhood in a lab.” 

There’s a slight hitch in his voice, an almost imperceptible shift in tone that seems to suggest a childhood familiarity with labs. Another piece of an overall puzzle Garak has yet to make fit.

“Odo is by all accounts a grown man,” Bashir continues, “but it’s no secret that he’s missed out on certain experiences that…” He trails off. “He’s not as worldly as he may want us all to believe.”

“And you are?” Garak asks.

“Of course not,” Bashir says. “I doubt anyone is.”

“Then why mention it?”

“Because if the rumors are true and you were holding hands with Odo this morning, or at least doing something that could have been misconstrued as holding hands, then you should know. Odo doesn’t have much experience with interpersonal relationships outside of work, so it’s in everyone’s best interest if you play nice. Treat him with kid gloves, if you will.”

“The Constable can take care of himself,” Garak says.

“I know. Why do you think I’m warning _you_?”

“A misplaced sense of chivalry?”

Bashir sighs. “If you push Odo too far, if you confuse him, if you do anything to confound or disrupt his sense of the world or himself, he will strike back. And seeing that he is Constable and you are, in the most simplistic definition, a criminal, I thought I should warn you.”

“I thought you were here to gossip,” Garak says.

“I was. But you clearly haven’t settled on a lie for whatever happened this morning—or else you would’ve told me the second I mentioned it—which leads me to believe you haven’t decided on a course of action regarding Odo.”

“And what better an opportunity to influence my thinking on the matter,” Garak says, bowing his head. “I see not all of my lessons have gone unlearned.”

“If you’ve taught me well, then you should listen to my warning. If only this once.”

“I make no promises.”

“When have you ever?” Bashir asks.

-

As soon as the door closes, Odo alights on an end table within Garak’s line of sight but well out of reach. That doesn’t stop a pair of sewing shears from nearly careening into his head the moment he resumes his favored solid form.

Ricocheting off the bulkhead, the scissors impale themselves in Odo’s shoulder.

“Scissors?” Odo asks, expelling the ersatz projectile from his person and sending it clattering to the floor. “A person appears seemingly from nowhere and your weapon of choice is a pair of scissors?” Odo tuts. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

Garak steps out from behind a coat rack, straightening the hem of his shirt.

“What choice do I have?” Garak asks. “Civilian residents are strictly forbidden from possessing weapons aboard the station. As a law-abiding citizen, I would never—”

“The panel nearest the door has started to show signs of wear,” Odo interrupts. “Whatever contraband you stored there—most likely weapons, possibly an emergency supply of narcotics—have been moved to a less conspicuous location. One you couldn’t reach just now.”

An uncanny grin slashes across Garak’s face. “And one you can’t reach without a warrant.”

“Stop posturing,” Odo says. “If I wanted to perform an unauthorized search of your quarters, I would’ve stayed a glob fly.”

“How comforting.”

Odo steps down from the end table in one, long fluid motion, chiding himself almost immediately for showing off.

“I’m not here on business,” he says once firmly on the ground.

Garak raises a brow ridge. “Oh?”

“I’m here…” Odo glances at the carpet, using every bit of his concentration to will the next words into existence. “...to discuss… a private matter.”

“Oh,” Garak says once more, somehow brighter this time. “Well, that certainly explains the secrecy. If anyone saw us walking into my quarters to discuss private matters, people may begin to talk.”

Odo glares at Garak. “People have already begun to talk.”

Garak touches a hand to his chest, a mockery of surprise and concern. “About what?”

“You know what!” Odo snarls.

“I’m sure I don’t know—”

“Don’t play dumb with me. Half the station is gossiping about your little display in the Replimat this morning.”

Garak takes half a step back. “Oh, you mean that?”

Odo advances. “Yes. That.”

“As a man who values his privacy nearly as much as you, let me assure you, Constable, I had nothing to do with whatever rumors are spreading about the station.”

“Nothing to do—” Overcome with frustration, Odo takes a second to regroup. “Are you saying you didn’t _manhandle_ me this morning in front of the entire Replimat?”

“Manhandle? You make me sound like a common thug.”

“And you aren’t?”

“A thug, perhaps. But not a common one.”

Odo grins snidely. “I’m sorry if I wounded your professional pride.”

“Not at all. I’ve transitioned out of that field. As you well know.”

“Then act like it. Stop trying to establish dominance by invading my personal space. It’s not nearly as effective as you think, and, frankly, it’s beneath you.”

Something in Garak’s demeanor shifts. No longer on the defensive, the upper half of his body leans toward Odo. With his feet still planted a careful distance from Odo, he’s in no better a position to strike, but his strangely open posture seems to invite a fight.

It’s as if he wants Odo to hit him.

“Is that what you think happened this morning?” Garak asks, all playfulness gone from his voice. “I was trying to dominate you?”

Odo doesn’t rise to whatever bait Garak is dangling, and simply says, “Why else?” 

The full question, “Why else would someone like you touch someone like me?” remains unsaid, but with Garak’s careful ear for nuance, the words are nonetheless heard.

“Contrary to what you may believe—” Garak’s voice takes on the same pedantic tone Odo has heard him use when lecturing Dr. Bashir about literature. But there’s an edge to it that has no place in a salon. “—not everything a Cardassian does—not everything I do—has an ulterior motive.”

Unlike Bashir, Odo has no use for insights into Cardassian nature. He lived under them and worked with them far too long for any mystique to remain.

“No,” Odo says, “sometimes your people’s cruelty rests entirely on the surface.”

“You have more than a passing acquaintance with my cruelty. So, tell me, did this morning feel cruel to you?”

Odo reflects on how normal—how expected—the weight of Garak’s hand on his arm felt at breakfast. But so many things—so many sensations—in Odo’s life started to feel normal after a period of conditioning.

“Cruelty, if done often enough, doesn’t always feel cruel,” Odo says. “On either side of the equation.”

Garak nods. “And justice, for those who have lived above it, can feel cruel when subjected to it.”

“Justice isn’t about feelings.”

“Then neither is cruelty.”

“How convenient for you,” Odo drawls.

“How convenient for us both.”

Odo can see points racking up on an imaginary scoreboard.

“I didn’t come here to debate philosophy,” he snaps.

“Why are you here, Odo?”

“I told you. I needed to discuss a…” Odo struggles with the words.

“Yes, a private matter,” Garak finishes. “But this has hardly been a discussion. You snuck in here with your accusations and generalizations and misplaced anger, and like everyone else on this station, you expected me just to stand by silently and take it. Ferengi, Bajoran, Federation, Changeling—all standing shoulder to shoulder with a finger pointed at me. I wonder: how close would this tinderbox of a community have become if Mr. Garak wasn’t here to serve as everyone’s scapegoat?”

Odo snickers. “Don’t you think you’re giving yourself a little too much credit?”

“Don’t you?” Garak asks. “Whatever rumors you heard, I didn’t start them and I certainly didn’t spread them. In fact, I’m as much their victim as you are. And yet you come here and blame me for—”

“The rumors are not the problem,” Odo interrupts. “I don’t care what people say about me. I care—” 

“Constable, your powers of self-deception surpass even my own. I must congrat—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you are far more concerned with the way other people perceive you than you’re willing to admit.”

“Have you thought for a moment that my reputation is key to maintaining—”

“It means,” Garak cuts in, “you took on a shape far smaller than you typically allow—do not think I haven’t noticed—just to avoid my neighbors seeing us together.”

“If the people of this station cannot respect me, how can I possibly expect them—”

“It means you were entirely personable—if only by your skewed standards—until station gossip came up.”

The flames of some unknown truth licking perilously close to Odo’s feet, he lashes out. “Unlike you, I haven’t completely ruined my own reputation. My name means something.” Odo doesn’t dwell on the irony. “Something other than failure. People still respect me.”

Garak stalks forward, tilting his head from side to side, taking Odo in from different angles. “And look how far respect has gotten you.” He clicks his tongue. “You went through all that trouble escaping the lab, but you still act like their specimen, performing for their observation. Take it from someone who knows, respect means very little if it requires denying your true nature.”

Odo leans forward, arranging his face into a suitably menacing expression. “Garak, you don’t have a true nature. In fact, I doubt you ever did. Everything you say or do is a lie meant to manipulate.”

“Then consider me a cautionary tale,” Garak says, his voice expansive. “Proof that you can do everything right, be exactly who they want you to be, and still end up miserable and utterly alone. In fact, I think you already have. Except, unlike me, you truly did this to yourself.”

Odo surges forward, grabbing Garak by the wrist. “I don’t care what you think. Your opinion means—”

“It feels nice, doesn’t it?” Garak breaks in with a loud, faux-casual tone. “Touching someone?” He wiggles his fingers, drawing Odo’s gaze to the tightly-gripped wrist below.

Odo releases him, but doesn’t pull away. The weakness brings him back to childhood, shaming him with memories of sensory-seeking behaviors, rendering him immobile, locked in by Garak’s gravitational pull.

“Do you want to know one of my favorite boyhood memories?” Garak whispers. “I’ll let you decide whether it’s true.”

Odo says nothing, mesmerized by the soft underside of Garak’s wrist peeking out from his shirt sleeve.

“My father was not a tactile man,” Garak continues. “He could go weeks without even looking at me. This isn’t the way of all Cardassians, but in our home it was normal. I never tried to change him, to make him display the affection I saw between my peers and their fathers. But despite his conditioning, I never lost the need for touch. I didn’t like to be punished, even though his punishments were certainly fair, but the moments just before, when he would lay a hand on the back of my neck and lead me away to get what I surely deserved… It was like rain during a drought. Lightning and wildfires may follow, but for the moment, there was rain.”

 

Despite his best efforts, Odo finds himself drawn deeper into his own childhood recollections. 

Dr. Mora never described anything he did to Odo as “punishment” or “discipline.” It was always “conditioning” or “experimentation” even if the methods were taken straight out of the Obsidian Order’s playbook. The Cardassians brought the sensory deprivation field to Bajor with interrogation in mind. After weeks of feeling nothing, a person will admit to anything. The lab received an old unit to run zero gravity experiments on a small, tightly controlled scale. Naturally, Dr. Mora was curious to observe how his Unknown Sample would behave in such an environment.

At first, Odo enjoyed the freedom weightlessness allowed. No longer pinned down to a flat surface, Odo could take on any shape he pleased—something he took advantage of when the lab emptied for the night, the field generator left running as the scientists went home to their families. And, of course, after years of poking and prodding, electric shocks and nitrogen baths, feeling nothing was almost a relief.

After a week, the monotony of weightlessness began to gnaw at him. It was boring, true, but also remarkably lonely. He hadn’t realized what measure of comfort the steady presence of a flat surface offered. Odo supposes he found some kind of community in touching a peer—another item in the lab considered an object.

Odo found temporart relief when Dr. Mora initiated the next stage of the experiment. To further assess how morphogenic and single-state objects interact, Dr. Mora slowly introduced weights of various sizes into the deprivation field. Almost immediately, Odo would swim through the air and wrap himself around whatever object he was given.

It didn’t take long for Dr. Mora to realize that his sample would do this no matter what the object was made of, how much mass it contained and at what density and configuration.

So, he took the objects away.

After a week of weightless torture, Dr. Mora introduced new objects. And Odo reacted much the same.

Dr. Mora had delivered electric shocks countless times before, but this was the first time Odo sought them out.

Clinging to an electrically charged bauble, Odo formed a lifelong opinion: the need for contact—either social or physical—is a weakness. Humanoids may have the luxury of indulging that weakness, but not Odo. For him more than for anyone else, showing weakness serves as an opening for exploitation.

Is that what’s happening? Is Garak trying to exploit him?

Odo finds his voice. It’s more gravely than usual. “Whatever it is you want from me, you won’t get it. Not from me. Not at all. And certainly not by sharing boyhood reminiscences.”

Garak backs away, holding his arms up grandly like a master of ceremonies. “How about a more contemporary tale?” Without waiting for a response, he begins, “I’ve lived on this station nearly as long as you have. And I must say I strongly preferred the previous administration. Not out of any lingering patriotism—although I do maintain that Bajor ultimately benefitted from the Occupation—but because I was with my people. They may have hated me and taken every opportunity to make my life miserable, but they were still my people. I was still—however marginally—a part of Cardassian society. As such, I was entitled to a certain level of physical proximity. Mostly in the form of what could properly be called ‘manhandling,’ but occasionally I was blessed with those small social niceties involving touch. I never thought I would miss someone brushing past me in a turbolift. Or tapping me on the elbow.”

Garak drops the storyteller façade. “People don’t touch me now. Not casually, not over the course of everyday business, not even in anger anymore. It’s as if I no longer exist.”

“You’re lonely,” Odo sums up, processing Garak’s monologue into as few words as possible. It’s a trick he often pulls on suspects, diminishing their web of lies and justifications into one succinct motivation.

Garak nods. “Breakfasts with you and lunches with Dr. Bashir can only do so much.”

The concept baffles Odo. How could someone with two regular social engagements be lonely? Isn’t that why Solids socialize in the first place? To stave off loneliness?

“And that’s not enough?” Odo asks.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘enough.’ I’m not likely to die from loneliness any time soon.”

Odo thinks of the plants Keiko recently thrusted into his care. “If I leave them with Miles,” she said, “they’ll survive, but I can’t say that they’ll thrive.” He dotes on them in the privacy of his quarters, following Keiko’s instructions to the letter, speaking to them although he doesn’t exhale carbon dioxide with each word. 

He has, he now realizes, taken better care of Keiko’s plants than he has himself.

If any Solid had done the same, Odo would consider them utterly incompetent.

“I suppose,” Odo hedges, “every being has the right to thrive.” He adds sharply, “But not at someone else’s expense. I don’t care how lonely you are. You can’t go around the station touching people without their permission. And that includes Quark’s waiters.”

“Does that include you?” Garak asks.

“Of course! On this station, under my watch, the rules apply evenly and to every—”

“Constable.” Garak’s voice has dropped an octave and at least a few decibels, but it cuts through Odo’s ranting. “Do I have your permission?”

“My permission?”

Garak nods. “May I touch you like I did this morning?”

Odo opens and closes his mouth several times, struggling to bring forth words. “I… don’t know.”

Garak clasps his hands behind his back. “Until you do, I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” He takes a step to the side, turning his body perpendicular to the door. “I’ll see you next week at our normal time.” He extends a hand, pointing Odo toward the exit.

Odo follows, allowing himself to be herded out of Garak’s quarters and away from his strange questions. He pauses just as the door swishes open. “I would like to know.” And then he’s gone.

-

The next time, Garak’s aim fairs much better, landing him an easy shot between the eyes. Although, to be fair, he isn’t dealing with a moving target this time; Odo is already in his solid form when Garak walks in. In the same token, the fact that the lights aren’t on yet should net him extra points.

Odo rips the sheers from his face with a suctioning noise that makes Garak shiver.

“Why do you keep throwing scissors?” Odo demands.

“Why do you keep sneaking into my property?” Garak counters.

“This isn’t your property. It’s a rental. From the Bajoran government. And as a representative of that government—”

“You have the passcode,” Garak finishes. “But that doesn’t explain how you got past—”

“The sensors strictly prohibited in your lease?” Odo asks. “Obviously, I waited until you had left your quarters so you wouldn’t hear the alarm.”

Garak bows his head deeply. “Thoughtfully, if simplistically, done, Constable.”

Odo sneers. “I’m glad you approve.”

Garak places his work bag on the table. “Lights to thirty-four percent.” Even then he winces at the sudden brightness. “Did you have something to tell me? Or do you enjoy being impaled with scissors?”

Odo shifts his stance, tucking his hands behind his back. “I wanted to talk. Before we had breakfast tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided that I don’t want you to touch me. Not when we’re eating breakfast. Not in public.”

Garak begins to unpack his bag. “But in private?”

Odo steps closer. “That could be nice.”

“I suppose that’s as much as I can hope for.”

Odo swoops down, leaning into Garak’s field of vision. “This isn’t about you. For once, it’s about me. This—” Gripping him by the wrist, Odo places Garak hand on the same spot he touched last week. “—is about me and how I feel.”

“How do you feel, Odo?” Garak squeezes his arm. “Do you even enjoy this?”

“I don’t,” Odo stammers, “not enjoy this.”

Garak slackens his grip, suddenly seeing before him a much younger man than he realized was ever there. “You truly don’t know.”

“No. The only bodily sensations I know outside of the Great Link—the only sensations I was ever taught—are pain and not-pain. Anything beyond that is a mystery. In terms of touching and what I might enjoy, I would prefer to know before anyone else does. Much less the whole station.” Odo pulls his arm away. “If you can’t agree to those terms, I suppose I’ll find out another way.”

Garak’s fingers slither up Odo’s forearm. “I don’t remember refusing your terms. In fact, now that you’ve dispelled my petty insecurities, a return to skullduggery and secret liaisons could be quite stimulating, don’t you think?” Garak cannot imagine sounding any more old or desperate.

But apparently it’s not too grating on whatever Odo hears with, because he leans in close, laying a trembling hand atop Garak’s. (A trembling ingénue. Garak may die.)

“Good,” Odo pronounces. “Cargo bay eleven is empty. Meet me there after you close. I have a spare hour before regenerating. I’d like to try this ‘holding hands’ business.”

Garak raises a brow ridge. “For an hour?”

“Yes.” Odo cocks his head to the side. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Good.” Odo stands up straight, disentangling himself from Garak. “1900 hours. Arrive promptly.”

Without another word, he leaves.

Once certain Odo is out of earshot, Garak takes several long, shuddering breaths, which do nothing to counter the sudden lightheadedness that overcame him. He leans against his worktable, needing the support, his middle-aged body no match for adolescent giddiness.

“That man is going to kill me,” he mutters.

In his diminished state (how the mighty have fallen, indeed), Garak can’t muster up the energy to care. In fact, he finds himself rather looking forward to it.

There are, he knows for certain, much worse ways to go.


End file.
